Bareback Rider
Etching
signed in pencil below the platemark, published state for "The Print Collectors Club"
Edition of 109
1935
25.5 x 12.5 cm (plate); 40 x 27 (sheet)

References: Bolling. G. Frederick and Valerie A. Withington, The Graphic Work of Laura Knight: including a Catalogue Raisonne of her prints, 1993. No 79.

Five examples of this etching are in public British holdings: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, City Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke on Trent.

This rich impression of an etching of a bareback rider and clown, framed beneath the drapes of the big top is one of Laura Knight's most accomplished and captivating prints. Her lively circus drawings and prints were sketched from life as she noted, "and during the performances I drew everything from behind as the show proceeded. I made friends with the performers and they often posed for me" (Laura Knight. Oil Paint and Grease Paint, p. 299). Knight completed a number of wonderfully detailed drawings and oils of circus horses and the present example is no exception,:
"It was useless trying to paint circuses without being able to draw a horse. I loved being in the stables, I loved getting to know each horse's funny ways... Horse-sickness comes often for those I was with through so many years, and a longing to run my hand over a satin coat; besides a great deal can be gained by the study of a horse, the line and the subtleties of the modelling are as entrancing as those of the human form.." (Ibid, p.303.)

Though an accomplished painter of many other subjects and an official war artist, Laura Knight's images of the circus remain some of the most powerful pieces within her body of work.

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